It is a well-known fact, referred to in Rachel Clarke’s eloquent and moving account of her life as a junior doctor, that candidates at interviews for medical school should never say that they want to help people. Instead, you must use a code — talk about wanting to make a difference, or of finding medicine and disease fascinating, or your love of using your hands.

The declining health of our loved ones is a predicament that none of us want to face. Knowing that there will always be a system in place to take care of them is a comforting assurance. Therefore, continuing to uphold the values of the NHS while not subjecting its workers to further stress will provide the crucial anchorage for a better future. Who would I recommend this book to? These are the extraordinary realities of the NHS front line. From the historic junior doctor strikes to the 'humanitarian crisis' declared by the Red Cross, the overstretched health service is on the precipice. And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. A searing insider's account of being a doctor during the tsunami of coronavirus deaths . . . It says everything about her character that Clarke refuses to settle for despair, focusing on the human decency she has seen ― Independent Since his days are determined and the number of his months is with You, and since You have set limits that he cannot exceed,This memoir of the first wave of Covid will, I predict, be read a century from now as one of the best eyewitness accounts of what happened in the nation's wards in 2020. But it is no less important that it be read now, as a riveting, heart-wrenching testimony from the front line . . . Clarke writes with grace and empathy about her patients and colleagues . . . A must-read -- Matthew D'Ancona, Tortoise Media Yet, when she finally emerged as a junior doctor at over thirty years of age and entered into the profession she had pursued with fervour, she became disillusioned by the punishing workload and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s unjust accusations towards junior doctors for failing to deliver an exemplary standard of care and a seven-day NHS. Despite being at the lowest position in the hierarchy of the medical profession, Clarke, like many other junior doctors, felt the need to speak up and voice her concerns. This led her to adopt a leading role in the activism against the proposed junior doctors’ contract. Through it all, she stayed true to the prioritisation of patient care and expressed her deep attachment and loyalty to the NHS, which threatened to be upended by unreasonable governmental policies. Tinted with a mixture of worry and optimism, this personal account promulgates a sense of hope for an increasingly battered and underfunded health service. Reflections The Distinctiveness of Britain’s Health System

As Clarke shares some of the traumatic experiences she went through in understaffed hospital shifts, I am moved by her longing to do the best for her patients—a worthy desire which is constantly being thwarted by the long hours and an impossible workload. She describes herself running between wards, frenzied and sleep-deprived, trying to stay sane while not letting her mounting frustration get in the way of treating patients with kindness and respect. How does it feel to be spat out of medical school into a world of pain, loss and trauma that you feel wholly ill-equipped to handle? In the long run, without proper measures to ease the burden on overstretched doctors, patient care will be severely compromised. Not only that, doctors and nurses can succumb to mental health problems precipitated by stress, anxiety and guilt at not being able to deliver the quality of care that their patients deserve. While it is no fault of the individual, it can seem to some doctors like a personal failure. My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me. From the very heart of the NHS comes this brilliant insight into the continuing crisis in the health service. Rachel Clarke writes as the accomplished journalist she once was and as the leading junior doctor she now is - writing with humanity and compassion that at times reduced me to tears.’ - Jon Snow, Channel 4 News

To be a medical novice who makes decisions which - if you get them wrong - might forever alter, or end, a person’s life? I feared that, if my hours and workload continued as they were, I might fail to cling onto the one thing that had driven me into medicine in the first place: my compassion. Breathtaking is a scorching corrective to any suggestion that the pandemic is a hoax and that empty hospital corridors imply deserted intensive care units . . . Written at pace as "a kind of nocturnal therapy" on sleepless nights, Clarke's book has all the rawness of someone still working in the eye of the storm ― Mirror Many always dream of being a nurse or a doctor specialising in specific areas of medicine, but no-one prepares you for the real life on the front line that is looking after patients and dealing with the most traumatic moments that only a doctor can experience. Every patient is different, not every patient is understanding some can be rather rude. We ask a lot of doctors and what they have to except. Rachel’s accounts in her book are very eloquent and her writing style means that she comes across as though she there with you talking directly you. Just like a doctor in fact. To toughen up the hard way, through repeated exposure to life-and-death situations, until you are finally a match for them?

I would still recommend it's read by prospective UK doctors (it's very UK centric) rather than someone in the US or European systems. My personal conviction is that the primary goal of any healthcare system should be to serve its people and ensure their health and wellbeing. The vision of the NHS is awe-inspiring, yet, sadly, it has been increasingly besieged by policies that contradict its founding principles. Most Interesting Part of the BookClarke is a superb storyteller as well as a clear-eyed polemicist . . . she writes with such compassion and humanity that you feel you are in the room . . . Clarke is certainly on the side of the angels and she has produced much more than a snapshot. Breathtaking is a beautiful, blistering account of a key moment in our history. If I were Boris Johnson, I wouldn't want to read it -- Christina Patterson ― Sunday Times